WoW Weekly: Dear Lord, It's Been a While

WoW Weekly is a biweekly-ish, self-absorbed look into the things I've been doing inside the game and out. From mount farming and raiding, to music, movies, books and other games.

Thus ends Feckless Leader's posting drought. 

Man, it's been a while, hasn't it? I knew I'd been neglecting this space for reasons I'll get into shortly, but when I realized it's been over a month since my last post I became extra grateful the spirit chose to move me this morning. Because that's really my MO. Like when writing music, I don't often approach this with discipline, but rather opt to wait around patiently for the muse to drop onto my shoulder, or at best, will the muse to touch down somewhere in the neighborhood. 

While the muse has been at arm's length this whole time, other things have taken precedence. I'm playing a hell of a lot more Legion than I was playing Warlords. But I'm also playing a lot less Legion than I did Mists of Pandaria. That's mostly due to real life business, and partly to do with the fact two other Blizzard games have been demanding my attention. 

Ok, two paragraphs in, seems like the right time to get to the main point of this whole post: have you guys met Mehlody? I don't think you have. I did what 99% of other players did and rolled a demon hunter at the start of the expansion. Then, I put her on the shelf so I could focus on gearing up the enhancement shaman main. 

A few weeks ago, I reached the point with my main where I could start to consider alts. That point for me, mind you, was finding and equipping a second legendary. He's been geared up to the teeth thanks to the guild's weekly raid, so outside of achievements and finishing Karazhan, he's doing all right. 

With Mehlody, I learned that if leveling is your main goal, things go by pretty quickly. As a double-gatherer, I chose to start out in Stormheim and Highmountain due to Fjarnskaggl and Foxflower herbs. Figured it'd be a good way to furnish some of my main's raid supplies, because flasks and potions are expensive, people! I quickly abandoned that idea with the advent of the Blood of Sargeras vendor, since gathering would just slow me down. I finished the main storyline in Stormheim, most of it in Highmountain, and just a snippet in Val'sharah before I dinged 110. Thanks to the work done by my trusty main Elepheagle, my Flight Master's whistle was instantly delivered and I set off to Suramar. 

Prior to last weekend, I was faced with the gearing slog: reach 810 in order to be able to queue for Heroic dungeons. I was well under that, and the prospects of running with the guild's Sunday alt run were unlikely. Thanks to some crafted gear and a couple of lucky world quest upgrades, I was just shy of 810 prior to raid start. I used pull that only a raid leader has and inserted myself into the off-tank position that night. Luckily, we only had one other tank that night, so I had to do it, you know? 

It was rough for me at times---I feel for the healers---but we managed to clear Normal Emerald Nightmare in about 75 minutes. Yes, we were stacked with superstars from our Thursday main raid, but still. I lucked out on gear, and a couple people chuckled when at raid's end I declared that I was ready for Heroic dungeons. I only did run a couple of those between last week's alt run and this week's, but still managed to pull my ilvl up to 830. Special nod to the legendary necklace I pulled from a Highmountain cache last night.

As for the alt run this week, we only managed to make it through Cenarius, but the loot gods were kind again, granting me over 10 ilvls. I think now I'm technically ready for Mythic dungeons, a prospect that excites me as a tank. 

I'm happy with the amount of time I put in on my main to get him to where he's at, but I'm also surprised at how quickly it felt like I got Mehlody to a respectable point. There's definitely some alt-unfriendly mechanics in this expansion, and I would NOT want to juggle the resource acquisition and order halls for 3+ characters. I look at Mehlody and feel like she's geared enough. I can fill in as raid tank if needed, tank any dungeon at this point...what's left? 

Roll another alt? What else can I say here...

Blizzcon

Oh yeah. I attended for the fifth time this year. The things I wanted to say were meant for a standalone post, but so much time has passed I'm not sure that'd be relevant. So I'll do it here in shorter form.

• The biggest thing I noticed this year was how little of the con's focus was on World of Warcraft, and how much was on esports, specifically Overwatch. It is a much different beast than the event I first attended six years ago. That said, the evolution feels natural. It's getting to the point where I feel like I could head to Anaheim for a vacation that just happens to coincide with the con, buy a virtual ticket, and do all the after-hours stuff with friends. Which leads me to...
• I did a terrible job of connecting with the community this year. This was due in part to the fact our group was staying a little farther off-campus in a house that had all the amenities you could wish for on a vacation, including a large, partially covered outdoor patio with a swimming pool, hot tub, foosball table, pool table, gaming center, dartboard, and bar. 
• Hodor (Kristian Nairn) can spin. I haven't really given EDM much of a chance, purely personal preference. But it was a lot of fun hearing and seeing live. Songhammer is Songhammer. Consistent fellas, even if the gig is getting a little old. Weird Al was a pleasant surprise, but Foo Fighters still remains as the only Blizzcon concert I saw through completely. A buddy and I opted to try out the Diablo Necromancer because we knew there'd be little to no line and we heard everyone who tested got a commemorative token.
• I had an incredibly awkward experience on the flight home. Ask me about it sometime.   

Overwatch
One inevitable effect from Blizzcon is having the desire to play other Blizzard games, at least for me. I'd sort of cooled on Overwatch during the lead up to Legion. I didn't have too many friends playing and I was busy getting all of my toons to level 100 in Warcraft. Seeing all of the Overwatch at Blizzcon lulled me back into the game. I've also found more friends to play with in the mean time, which makes the game more enjoyable on multiple levels. I'm not a fan of the shooter genre, but I'm a big fan of this game. 

Heroes of the Storm

While I didn't need any extra urging to jump back into Heroes of the Storm post-Blizzcon, the Nexus Challenge makes it extra worthwhile. Though it's seemingly a ploy to get Overwatch players to check out Heroes, I and many friends have taken advantage of the promotion. Now that I've played my 30 games I've opted to take it easy and devote non-WoW game time to Overwatch, but you can be sure I'll be making regular appearances in the Nexus.

After those last two paragraphs I must say, damn, Blizzard makes good games. I like knowing that when life gets too busy for WoW, or even when WoW is no more, I won't have to look far for my gaming entertainment.

WoW Weekly: Luke 8 Verse 30

WoW Weekly is a biweekly-ish, self-absorbed look into the things I've been doing inside the game and out. From mount farming and raiding, to music, movies, books and other games.

Oooooooooohhh-weeeeee the excitement is palpable, is it not? The fact that we're a half a day away from having our login attempts throttled by DDOS attacks is something that always ushers in the warm fuzzies. At 12:01a Pacific time, I will be sleeping. No time off of work to level this week; what remains of my vacation days is going towards Blizzcon. I entertained waking in the wee hours Tuesday morning to get some time in before work, but again, I'm anticipating the servers will be dealing with a lot of extra crap at first. It's likely that I won't sit down with Legion until the lunch hour on Tuesday---servers allowing.

It's going to be a busy week. There's band practice, a wedding, other obligations, and a gal out there who likes to see me from time to time. So in preparation I'm hashing out a bit of a schedule and setting some goals for the week.

Monday
That's today. Today I'm just trying to concentrate on work but this post here is Exhibit A in a slew of evidence pointing toward the fact that I'm failing at the concentrating thing. In a perfect world I would've taken a week off but this is America and vacation days are a hot commodity around here. Those lucky enough to have paid vacation tend not to have a lot of it. I'll shut up now.

I do envy those who were able to bank off some time; to me, it's not about being answerable to the Dev's release schedule. It's about the shared, collective experience we have at an expansion's launch: for a couple of brief weeks, the vast majority of players are engaged in a single activity---leveling up their toons. I saw someone refer to today as this year's first Christmas Eve. Very apt. It's also about putting myself into good status when it comes to raid-readiness. I'd also like to explore the possibility of leveling up an alt concurrently with my main, instead of waiting for a lull.

In the mean time, I'm checking out what others are saying here in the 11th hour totally concentrating on work real good. Qelric has an excellent piece over at MMO Games on her impressions of the Legion leveling experience. I didn't think I could get any more excited for Tuesday, but her post brought it up another level.

Tuesday
The holy day. Or demonic, perhaps. After writing that last section and working through my feelings of jealousy, a 5- or 6am alarm clock doesn't seem so crazy. Only trouble is Tuesday is my long day---I work the day job from eight to five and then host an open mic event from six til around midnight. Shaving off a couple of hours of sleep might come back to bite me.

So the AM playtime call will be made in the moment; I'll for sure get to see something over the lunch hour on Tuesday, and perhaps briefly after work. If the servers are stable, I'm hoping to at least find my artifact weapon and knock out a few quests.

Wednesday
Technically I don't have to be at the day job until noon, but I generally come in between nine and ten. I might milk that this week and get a couple of hours in before work. Following work is band practice, but that should wrap up by 8p, leaving a solid three or four hours open before sleep. I'm hoping to be in the 102-104 range by Wednesday's end.

Thursday
There may be noon-hour shenanigans. If not, I'll still be left with a generous amount of time: Thursday night is traditionally the guild's raid night, so I already have that time blocked off for Warcraft! Then again, I may not play the whole night, as a few weeks into September my Thursday nights will be reclaimed by progression raids. I'm hoping to be somewhere around 105-107 by the end of the night.

Friday
This will be the night where I'm truly prepped. Beer and lazy food items will be on the menu. Probably pizza. Yeah, pizza sounds good. Gonna opt for delivery methinks, a real treat. Taco pizza. Mmmmmm. Probably some nachos as a late-night snack. I hope to be near max level by the night's end---which could stretch into the wee hours of the morning provided I don't have much for plans on Saturday.

Saturday
Planning on a hearty breakfast of sausages, eggs and OJ whenever I roll out of bed, though it'll probably be sometime in the 10 o'clock hour since I start to feel guilty if I sleep later than that. I should probably let my local friends know I'm alive; perhaps I'll head over to @kennylogouts' house for a LAN party. :D

I'm hoping to reach max-level at which point I'll concentrate on any remaining profession leveling.

Sunday
My baby sister gets married. Please don't kill the Legion without me.

Monday
Free day, as it's a holiday here. I may be burned out on long play sessions by this point and/or possibly hungover from the night before, so I haven't quite planned this day out. Regardless, I mean to head into next week at max level, so if need be I'll finish that off. But probably not much else.

How about you? What's your first week of Legion going to look like?

WoW Weekly: Getting Prepared

WoW Weekly is a biweekly-ish, self-absorbed look into the things I've been doing inside the game and out. From mount farming and raiding, to music, movies, books and other games.

While there is a lot of stuff I'd like to write about based on what I've experienced in-game during the last 24 hours, I'm going to leave all of that alone until more players have had the chance to experience the new content. Any post here that contains even a semblance of a spoiler will be marked as such---I won't be giving anything away for those who'd rather see it all themselves first. 

This will be a spoiler-free post as it relates to lore. I will write about the Broken Shore and the Demon Hunter starting experience in general terms, so if you'd rather not hear a peep, stop back after you've had some time to play. I've only spent a couple of hours in game since invasions began and demon hunters became playable, but that time has left me eagerly anticipating the arrival of the full expansion, as well as scrambling to carve out more time in a busy week to sit down with the game. 

The Betrayer and Me
When I stopped home over the noon hour---also, several hours before maintenance was scheduled to conclude---I was surprised to see my Battle.net list showing a couple of friends online. So I logged in, deleted my nameholder mage and went to create a new character. Sure enough, on the screen was a night elf demon hunter. Of course, I'd be of the Blood Elf variety, but this was nonetheless great news. 

I'm not surprised the "100 most popular girls names" I googled were snatched up, but I knew I wanted a name that was simple and familiar. I was really trying for a single-syllable name but couldn't settle on anything I liked. Thus, Mehlody came into being (pictured at top). 

I haven't actually finished the demon hunter starting area, but what I've experienced so far has been encouraging. The DH, to me, feels a bit rogue-ish but distinct enough to where it remains appealing. Granted, I haven't yet earned all of my abilities (as far as I know), and I'm curious to learn about the difference between the Havoc and Vengeance specs. 

Broken for Shore
I played again for about an hour after work before I had to run off to other obligations. This was enough time to play through the entirety of the Broken Shore scenario and the aftermath that (for Horde players) takes place in and around Orgrimmar, culminating with being sent to fend off one of the invasions that are starting to happen all across Azeroth (well, a handful of predesignated zones).

It shouldn't take that long for most players to finish the questline---I was simply taking my time, exploring a little, letting it all sink in. I visited Ravika before setting off to the Broken Shore, which is something you should do for three toys and a sweet transmog that essentially allows you to hide whatever's in your feet slot.

As for the Broken Shore scenario itself? I think it's likely to go down as one of the best intros we've seen from Blizzard. Players will walk away from this one with a much deeper understanding of the Legion's might and what it could mean for the fate of Azeroth. For me, the Tanaan Invasion that led us onto Draenor was missing something; I don't know exactly what it was missing, but whatever it was, the Broken Shore experience has it. Can't say I've ever been more excited to see where the story is going. I hope this indicates Blizzard will really focus on storytelling and eliciting emotion this expansion. There were moments in this where I could feel my heart pounding, and afterwards I was left in awe.

What is Next
For starters, I'm planning to finish up the demon hunter intro after band practice tonight, maybe putz around with some dungeons, LFR, or legacy content (another character to add to the weekly Alysrazor runs). After that's finished, I'll likely hit as many invasions as I can to collect all of the things. I may run each of my level 100s through the Broken Shore scenario. Word is you can skip it once you've completed it for the first time, but unlike the Tanaan invasion, I'm not sure I want to. 

I'm looking forward to a lot more Warcraft in my future. 

WoW Weekly: Dormant

WoW Weekly is a biweekly-ish, self-absorbed look into the things I've been doing inside the game and out. From mount farming and raiding, to music, movies, books and other games.

Ch-ch-changes.

That's what we all saw last Tuesday with the arrival of the Legion pre-patch. How's it been going for you? I had a pretty busy week leading up to the guild's Thursday raid night, so I wasn't able to put in a great deal of time into learning my enhancement shaman's new rotation. Bosses fell in record time, but things still felt a bit off. While the enhancement rotation looks different on the surface---no more totems, no more Maelstrom x 5 Lightning Bolts, no more shocks---the spells we see now have parallels in the old rotation. 

Instead of Unleash Elements, I've talented into Frostbrand with the aim to keep the buff up 100% of the time. Instead of keeping Flameshock active, we now maintain the Flametongue buff. The main difference between the old and the new is the concept of "building and spending" abilities. We definitely have a lot more control over Maelstrom accrual, though right now the rate of acquisition seems a bit slow. Currently, I'm noticing a bit more down time in combat compared to the old rotation. I've been told the artifact weapon come Legion will smooth some of this out. 

After spending some time with target dummies, setting up some WeakAuras, and killing a half-dozen raid bosses, the rotation is beginning to feel natural. Phew. For a while I felt like I might have to bid farewell to my main since the Burning Crusade. 

Thanks for All The Resources
Now that the lucrativeness of the garrison is all but gone, the call to log in on a daily basis to gather gold has gone quiet. There's still quite a bit I could finish up in Legion, like collecting missing toys, pets, and mounts, but I generally leave a chunk of content unfinished for the inevitable down time that will happen in the new expansion. For example, once the guild had Heroic Archimonde on farm status, I started going after old-world mounts as well as achievements on the Timeless Isle. 

Falling to My Death, Over and Over Again
This makes no sense, I thought to myself, as I plummeted from the skies over Orgrimmar towards the ground where certain death awaited. I repeated this several dozen times in order to satisfy the requirements for the Feat of Strength It All Makes Sense Now over the course of my lunch hour earlier this week. Can't say it was fun, but it's done. 

Climbing the Mount(ain) Runs
After landing two mounts I'd been after for some time, as mentioned in my last post, I set my sights on Alysrazor in the Firelands. However, the prospect of setting up six more characters under the new changes feels too daunting at the moment, and for now, I've ceased mount runs until I can get a better handle on my enhancement shaman.

Making Grandpa Proud
This will probably get the Gaming Affairs treatment at some point, because I've sunk a lot of time into Stardew Valley over the past month and a half. I was turned on to the title by my step-brother, and at first glance it looked pretty dumb. Never played Harvest Moon or Farmville but that's what Stardew looked like to me. Essentially, you inherit a farm in disrepair from your grandfather, and it's up to you to rejuvenate it. 

While it's very similar to those other games in many aspects from what I'm told, I've had a good time in-game. There's a lot of character depth that took me by surprise, and at times the game highlights some quite serious and deep problems, like corporate business running mom & pop shops out of town, townsfolk struggling with depression and self-image, and soldiers returning from war with PTSD. Admittedly, it's beginning to feel stale, especially as I edge closer to "beating" the game (I'd liken this to earning all of WoW's achievements, but on a much smaller scale). That said, the staleness only began to creep in after I logged more than 70 hours. Normally $15, I nabbed it for a discount during the Steam Summer Sale. It's been a while since I put that much time into WoW over a two-month period, so I'd call it money well-spent.

Check out the title for yourself on Steam.

Watching Winona Freak Out
Netflix Originals, man. They've got a good thing going. I've plowed through Daredevil, Jessica Jones, The Ranch, and Bloodline. With Vikings, Game of Thrones, and the Walking Dead on hiatus I started looking for something new. Which is when I found Stranger Things. It's set in the early 80s in what could be almost any small, rural town in America. I won't spoil anything, but the basic premise is that a boy goes missing, a strange girl with powers shows up and the people involved try to make sense of it all. It has a strikingly nostalgic feel and reminded me of some classics: E.T., Goonies, Stand By Me, and so on. Winona Ryder plays the missing boy's mother, and offers an authentic performance that involves a lot of screaming and yelling. 

I binged that in about a week, so I'm back in the running for a new show. Heard quite a bit about some of the other Originals I haven't touched yet (OITNB, House of Cards, etc.)...any thoughts? 

Getting the Band Back Together
The group I've been playing with since 2007ish has started to book shows again. We had a couple-year hiatus due to marriages and babies and those sorts of things. Now that things have settled down, families have gotten comfortable with their new routines (/target Child, /cast Silence), we're looking to write, record, and play a show from time to time.  

WoW Weekly: Farewell to Ulduar

WoW Weekly is a biweekly-ish, self-absorbed look into the things I've been doing -- or not doing -- in the game. From auctioneering and pet battling to mount farming and raiding.

It happened the day after my birthday; granted, the fact the Warcraft movie released on my birthday was quite the present, but I was happy to accept Mimiron's Head as a belated gift from the World of Warcraft. The second of six characters scheduled for the week saw it drop. Altogether, I killed Yogg Saron 249 times before the mount drop, with kill number 250 being the lucky one. However, I'm told that isn't so lucky.

With the robot head added to the collection, I have all of the rare pre-Cataclysm mounts. After a couple of years of farming Ulduar, it was time to bid farewell and set my sights on a new goal. Ideally, it'd be something pre-MoP so that my stable of characters could attempt the run each week instead of just my strongest character. Instead, I figured I'd head back to Pandaria on my main character to see what sorts of trouble the world bosses and those found on the Isle of Thunder would pose. Besides, I'm still after one of the mounts dropped by the Zandalari Warbringers.

Galleon and Nalak fell with ease, but I could not dispatch the Sha of Anger quickly enough, meaning when the mind control portion of the fight came, the fight would reset itself. I know it's possible to solo the Sha of Anger, but it may still require a certain class to do so. I made a mental note to revisit the Sha once I've leveled a bit in Legion.

While heading to Nalak, I recalled the two mounts that drop in the Throne of Thunder, one from Horridon and one from Ji'kun. I was pretty confident I could at least make it through Horridon with my main character (around 730 ilvl) on 10-player mode. And I was right. But there was a rather astonishing aspect to the feat: Horridon dropped the mount!

Now on a high from seeing a super rare and then a rare mount drop within an hour's time, I decided to get the hell out of the Throne of Thunder for the time being, vowing to return once I had a stable of characters to run through each week. I'm hoping the lockout-sharing trick continues to work in Legion. I opened up my collections pane and navigated to the mounts tab; filtered for "not collected" and "drops". And I saw a mount I swear I'd acquired years ago: Flametalon of Alysrazor. Hrmph.

So I'll set the hearthstones of seven characters to Aviana's Shrine and return each week until Alysrazor coughs up the mount. Other updates include:

Swimming in it: Account-wide gold count has eclipsed 1.3 million. The economy for crafted armor/weapons continues to slide. The gem market ebbs and flows, but is on a downward trend. Potion and flasks seem to be selling rather quickly, but for a fraction of the price they sold at months ago. Now that we know the lucrative nature of garrisons will be removed in the Legion pre-patch, which folks are speculating to arrive mid-July, I'm planning to squeeze every last coin from my garrisons while still possible.

Guild Raids: Refusing to die under the weight of this crippling content lull, the guild continues to raid on Thursday evenings. I'd taken a couple of months off in the early spring, but they forged ahead. When I left, we had two bosses down in Mythic. By the time I returned, they were working on their 5th kill. Sadly, interest began to drop at this point and we regularly find ourselves unable to field a viable group to continue progress. Regardless, we've kept the raid alive by revisiting previous tier Mythics, running guild achievements, and helping friends get their moose mounts.

Guild Meetup: I'm stoked to attend the 2nd Annual Sapere Aude Guild Meetup next weekend. Some of you may remember we held our first meetup last year in upstate New York, and it was a blast. This year, we're moving across the country to Colorado in order to make it easier on some of our west coast folks.

WoW Weekly: The Bad Beta Tester

img: Blizzard

All's still pretty quiet on my end when it comes to Azeroth. Other than making good on my promise from the previous post---my banker is once again gold-capped---I still haven't been doing too much in game. However, that's about to change.

But before I get to that, let touch on the big news of the (previous) week: the Legion Beta is live! I haven't received an invite, and I'm not disappointed about it in the least. You see, I'm what they refer to in technical circles as a "bad beta tester." I'm pretty sure I got into the Cataclysm beta...pretty sure. But that alone gives an indication as to how much I actually played it. I bought my way into the Mists of Pandaria beta, and I was glad for it: I thought the game looked beautiful and I really, really wanted the early access. I took the opportunity to play through the pandaren starting area a couple of times (something I'd actually already done at the prior year's Blizzcon) and left it at that. I got into the Warlords beta as well, and didn't play much once again. Ho-hum.

One of the main reasons I don't go all out in Warcraft betas is because I'm really averse to learning story spoilers before the rest of my playmates have the chance to experience them. While I'm as excited as the next guy or gal for new Warcraft content, beta access doesn't fall under the "new content" category for me. Another big reason is the lack of time: I don't find myself in excess, so I have to be discerning about leisure activities. Some folks might point at those two truths and declare that I should not have opted-in to the beta in the first place. To those people, I fart in your general direction.

Blizzard knows what they're doing; for every tester who's trying to run through walls or fall through the world, there's likely a hundred others who are simply going about their routines, calling attention to bugs if and when they come across them. Both are valuable to Blizzard at the end of the day. So let's allow beta testers to be beta testers in all their varied glory, shall we?

On to the other stuff:

Gold-capped...Again
It happened last Friday. As my banker collected auction sales and garrison spoils from my level 100s, suddenly he wouldn't take any more currency. I'm currently sitting on 1.1 million gold across the account, which is a drop in the bucket compared to what some folks have made this expansion, but it's a nice chunk to head into Legion with. The economy is continuing to slide with people off-loading excess mats, which in turn is driving down the price and the likelihood of sale for certain craftable goods.

I'm unsure whether I should take part in a Great Liquidation prior to Legion, or if I should hold on to a cache of profession mats to sell later on once the market's not as flooded. Perhaps I'll consult someone much wiser than I, or perhaps you can leave your informed opinion in the comments!

Back in the Saddle?
If all goes well, I should be making a return to raiding with the guild as early as this week. Regular visitors may remember that in early April I decided to take a break from raiding for the first time in three years...just too much going on outside of the game, and not enough going on in it for me personally. It's weird to think it's only been six weeks, as it feels like it's been a lot longer. I miss the folks I play with and the night we raided together, and with the Warcraft movie, guild meetup, and Legion just around the corner, I felt now would be the perfect time to get back into the swing of things.

Also, our guild is currently giving out Heroic-Archimonde runs to friends and family of the guild who have interest in the mount but may not raid. If you are reading this, consider yourself a friend of this writer and would like your very own moose, hit me up!

Gauntlet Slayer Edition
Continuing my streak of exploring additional games during the Warcraft content lull, I dove back into Gauntlet over the weekend. I say "dove back" because I purchased the game when it originally launched and was left quite disappointed. However, since I last logged in, the developer has made a string of improvements to the game, including cosmetic and power items, as well as a more straight-forward and understandable progression. It's a fun little dungeon crawler, and just as it was back in the day, even more fun when played with friends.

Guild Meetup Colorado Edition
In just less than a month and a half I'll be heading out to Colorado for the second (potentially annual) Sapere Aude guild meetup. We I don't have many plans besides hanging, drinking, warming my bones next to a campfire under the night sky, and visiting the Ren Faire on the Saturday of our trip. I'd like to hit a dispensary too just for the experience, but I may not be able to fit that in to due time restraints and lack of guildie interest.

WoW Weekly: 954k and Rising

WoW Weekly is a biweekly-ish, self-absorbed look into the things I've been doing -- or not doing -- in the game. From auctioneering and pet battling to mount farming and raiding.

Not a whole lot has happened since the last WoW Weekly update, aside from my bank character's bottom line has continued to increase. This morning's assessment put me at 954,369g. I was just over 700,000g five weeks ago, meaning I've continued to bring in 50,000g per week on average.

I'm anticipating reaching the gold cap by the end of this week. I feel obligated to remind you (and my ego approves) that I hit the gold cap once before, prior to when it was easy garrisons. Nowadays, a single garrison can net you 10-15k in a week's time, meaning Warlords of Draenor has at minimum enabled players to pay for their subscription costs with gold alone.

Now that we have an official release for Legion, hand-over-fist gold-making days are numbered. We're looking to August 30th now, but I'm more interested in learning about when the pre-patch will arrive, as I have a feeling that is when we will see the nerfs to garrison gold acquisition. While I'd love the extra month or so, I'm not betting on it. I read an interesting blog post by Joar stating that it's no longer worthwhile to start a new garrison and level it all the way up, based on the cost it takes to do so and the time we have left in Warlords. Give it a read.

Other than that, I have not been playing WoW outside gold-hoarding and Ulduar runs. On to the general updates:

Speaking of Ulduar Runs: My squad of four has been expanded into a squad of six. I had a bit of trouble bringing my 91 arms warrior into the mix, but once I was able to figure the character out, Yogg fell with relative ease. Still no mount though, of course.

Heroes of the Dorm Storm: I watched a decent portion of the Heroes of the Dorm competition, and all of the Grand Finals matches. It caused a tiny voice inside me to say "Hey go play Ranked Mode!" so I've been doing that. I believe I have a few placement matches remaining before I'm assigned an official rank.

Rocket League: Two weekends ago, Rocket League was free-to-play on Steam as part of a promotion for their championships. I'd heard a lot of great things about the game, so checking it out was a no-brainer. I also absolutely love soccer. The driving style reminds me of another game I used to play years ago called Rumble Racing. Basically your car has some extra maneuverability in the form of jumping, speed boosting, and when used together, flight. I ended up buying the game when the trial ended (justified, of course, by it being on sale).

Oh yeah, Blizzcon: I'm going! This makes number five for me and my partner in crime, @thronus. And awesomely, the good @kennylogouts will be joining us, meaning a #3WiMigos reunion! We're super stoked to have been fortunate enough to land tickets once again, especially for the year marking the 10th Blizzcon and the 25th anniversary of Blizzard Entertainment. I'm banking on this being a special year. Check out my Blizzcon Noob guide for some survival tips!

WoW Weekly: Break Time!

WoW Weekly is a biweekly-ish, self-absorbed look into the things I've been doing -- or not doing -- in the game. From auctioneering and pet battling to mount farming and raiding.

Well, it's finally happened. Made it official by posting on the guild forums: I'll be taking a break from the game until the spark reignites. Well, not the entire game, just the only activity I was actively engaged in outside of garrison chores and weekly Ulduar runs: raiding.

Last week I decided to sit out for our Heroic/Alt raid just to see how it felt to not raid when no obligations were keeping me from doing so. When raid time rolled around, I felt that familiar tinge---part routine and part desire, unsure of each's weight in the equation---but it didn't last long. There was a small feeling of being left out, but I quickly squashed that, as this choice was mine.

I've been involved in organized guild raids, whether as leader, planner, or assistant, since the summer of 2013 without taking a break. Even on a 1-night schedule, much time was spent planning, leading and organizing while helping to maintain a guild. It was honestly a lot of fun, but also demanded quite a bit of my time. Now three years later, the raid is an undeniable success and the guild seems a well-oiled machine. Given that, I've been to pay a little more attention to the feeling of burn-out.

Last fall's life change offered some new perspective as well. When you've got a great deal of the future planned out in your mind's eye and suddenly the RESET button gets hit, it tends to make one pause. I'm grateful to have had my guildies' support during the time, and the option to continue part of the routine I'd known for so long. I'm still working out how much I want my hobbies, like music and gaming, to fit into this uncharted expanse ahead of me. Stepping away, in light of the above, seems the wisest thing to do at this point.

And if it were only the two things I've listed above, I might stick around a bit longer. But there is a third prong: Warlords of Draenor's lack of appeal to me. I won't even waste the time to go through what I liked and didn't like. The fact is, I wanted to enjoy this game as much as I've enjoyed all of the previous expansions. But I didn't, and nothing's going to change that at this point. My hope is that what drew me to and kept me in Azeroth isn't completely lost. I want to like Legion, too. I'll remain cautiously optimistic for the time being.

Ulduar Runs Continue
My squad of four characters have already been through Ulduar this week and are currently resting until next week's adventure. One byproduct of next week's run will be the acquisition of the legendary mace on my priest, the second character overall to complete the chain.

Gold Collecting
This week's tally saw me eclipsing 700,000g. Exactly two weeks ago I reported that I'd eclipsed 600,000g, meaning I've averaged 50,000g per week since then. Again, this is accomplished without stepping foot outside of my garrison. I'm confident I'll see the gold cap well before Legion's launch.

Cheating on WoW
I dove into the Darkest Dungeon for a while, but the repetition and brutal challenges in that game have led me to put it aside for a while in favor of an MMO I first checked out a few years ago: The Secret World. Look for a Gaming Affairs post on that title soon!

WoW Weekly: Keeping the Flame Alive

WoW Weekly is a biweekly-ish, self-absorbed look into the things I've been doing -- or not doing -- in the game. From auctioneering and pet battling to mount farming and raiding.

Here we are again.

It's starting to look like Siege of Orgrimmar two-point-oh, sitting on nine months of no new content with nary a Legion release date in sight. Our guild has had Heroic Archimonde on farm since the middle of December, and I'd exhausted all content that personally interested me well before then. I'm not saying there's nothing to do. I'm saying that the options currently available to me don't appeal.

To be honest, I really didn't mind the Siege of Orgrimmar lull. At the time, our guild was in the end stages of a rebuild, and I was happy to use the time to continue recruitment while leveling alts and knocking out old achievements. I spent a lot of time on the Timeless Isle during those months.

I'm having a hard go at biding the time, this time around, for whatever reason. I've settled into the bi-daily routine of collecting garrison gold, but I wouldn't call it "fun." It's nice to not have to worry about paying for a subscription, but if I think about how the minutes spent in-game translate to real dollars...yeah, let's not go there.

But then, there's raid night. Where my temporary aversion to this game disappears, and I'm surrounded by a couple dozen of the raddest folks I've ever played with. Good guildies. Keeping the flame alive.

Ok, enough whining from me. Let's talk things just generally me:

Mythic Hellfire Citadel
The guild group made some serious progress on the Council fight last night. We're handling the earlier stage Reaps much better than we did on our first foray. Phase 3 came relatively consistently, but we've still got a test ahead of us.

Ironman
I've done a little bit of leveling with the monk over on Wyrmrest Accord; had a brush with death when a named mob I had to kill for a quest gave me a surprising amount of trouble. A couple more strikes would've seen Flasz joining his brother Glasz in the Annals of Failed Adventurers.

Gold Making
I've established a fairly consistent pattern of logging in twice per day to knock out garrison missions, once in the morning and once in the evening. Between profession sales and gold collection, I've just eclipsed 600,000g. As a point of reference, on January 27th of this year I was sitting on just over 300,000g. This means I'm more than keeping up with the average of 100,000g per month---and that's after I've paid for a WoW Token!

Podcast
Ooh! Yours truly was featured on The Starting Zone podcast's #WhyIWoW segment. We chat about what got me playing, what keeps me (hint: I already told you in this post), and a myriad of other topics.

Zarhym
One of Blizzard's veteran community managers recently announced he was no longer with Blizzard. A sad day. I met the guy once, and wanted to share some words.

Darkest Dungeon
In the WoD lull I'm currently going through, I've revisited my Steam library and pulled out the Darkest Dungeon. If you don't know what that game's all about, check out my first impressions.

WoW Weekly: You Snooze, You Lose

WoW Weekly is a biweekly-ish, self-absorbed look into the things I've been doing -- or not doing -- in the game. From auctioneering and pet battling to mount farming and raiding.

Welcome to yet another edition of WoW Weekly! Happy spring y'all! At least it's looking unseasonably spring where I am right now on the western shore of Lake Michigan. It's driving the itch to get outside, and it would appear I'll have several months to enjoy the weather before Legion pulls me back inside.

Anyway, I think the big non-Russ news this week has been the revelation that garrison gold missions will be nerfed come Legion, something that very well could happen with the Legion pre-patch. It's not like the 6.2 nerf that limited the amount of gold missions a player could get across characters; according to Alpha data, this change removes the gold reward entirely and instead grants garrison resources.

If you're not utilizing your garrison for free gold, I won't go so far as to say you're doing it wrong, but I will offer that you're missing a golden opportunity.* By logging in regularly on a single character to do garrison chores, I've been able to pay for my monthly subscription and then some. The thing is, I have four characters with max level garrisons, which means after paying my subscription I'm still pulling in roughly 100,000g per month---just by logging in for 15-30 minutes per day.

Anyway. Outside of garrison chores, there are a handful of other things I've been doing since the last mega-update:

• After servers came back online yesterday, Tarlna the Ageless, the final boss I needed to kill while wearing a bird hat, claimed a chunk of land in southern Gorgrond just waiting for me and my guildies to come along and put up a fight. Pepe now comes whenever I call. 
• Our current raid schedule saw us fighting our first Mythic Hellfire boss, and we vanquished Hellfire Assault rather quickly. We were able to make some good progress on Iron Reaver as well, and I anticipate seeing a kill when we head back in this week.
• I earned a Level 3 shipyard on my third of four max-level characters solely for the convenience of having the command table inside my garrison.
• You know things are quiet when you can find me traipsing around the Timeless Isle for items required to complete Going to Need a Bigger Bag. I've collected roughly 75% of the items to date.
• Yogg-Saron kills continue each week across four characters using this neat lockout-sharing trick. I am too scared to tally up the total number of attempts I've made thus far. 
• I haven't been running much on my Ironman character---thanks, Overwatch---but I did manage to push him into the 20s so he can now legally enjoy the benefits of a ground mount.  

*Yeah, I went there.

WoW Weekly: A Bigg'un

WoW Weekly is a biweekly-ish, self-absorbed look into the things I've been doing -- or not doing -- in the game. From auctioneering and pet battling to mount farming and raiding.

This WoW Weekly thing used to be somewhat of a weekly thing. And there are good reasons for its lapse, as I see. Some of those reasons will be discussed on an upcoming podcast. Said podcast is partially responsible for reigniting the drive to return to blogging here more regularly, but I'm not sure how long it will last. Legion may play into that prospect heavily.

The last WoW Weekly from May of 2015 looked at ways to approach the game outside of current content, since to me that content was lackluster at best. Thankfully, the arrival of Tanaan Jungle with Patch 6.2 was just around the corner. If nothing else, I knew I'd be knocking out the final achievements required for Draenor Pathfinder.

Let's catch up.

In late June, prior to a guild meet-up in New York, we killed Blackhand just in time to earn Ahead of the Curve. Then, the meetup saw roughly a dozen members of Sapere Aude converging on a little resort town in upstate New York to hang for a weekend. Many, many years ago, my personal goal was to join or start a guild that was tight-knit enough to make something like this happen. Achievement earned. We're in the process of planning 2016's meetup as I write this.

By August, my play habits hadn't really changed much; truth is, I still had to force myself to log in and had little desire to do so. So August saw some logging in for garrison chores two or three times per week, killing Yogg-Saron with four characters in search of Mimiron's Head, and raiding on Thursday nights.

En route to Ulduar.

September turned out to be one of the most surreal months I've had in a long, long time. The guild was working on Normal Archimonde, having already pushed halfway through Heroic. That's not why it was weird though. It got weird when the relationship I'd been in for the past six years dissolved. Would have seen it coming were it not for the blinders I'd equipped, and now, what's done is done. Needless to say it had a bit of an effect on my approach to the game. 

October was a month of personal recovery. I had some soul-searching to do and took refuge in music and friends. That, and I had to find a new place to live. For the first time since I'd started raiding during the Wrath of Lich King, I missed more than one scheduled raid in a month's time. I had internet access within a week of moving, but if my desire to play the game was low prior, it became non-existent. 

The succession plan I had in mind for Legion that involved me handing over the raid-leading reins suddenly got moved up. Thankfully, since we have such great people, the guild continued on, the raid still progressed, and I found myself on the receiving end of a plethora of concern and kind words from the friends I'd made in Azeroth. 

The month of November hailed an event that provided some much-needed entertainment: Blizzcon. I welcomed the departure from the Wisconsin climate and the distraction from the familiarity of home. Plus, I got to see and hang out with a bunch of my Blizzard-community friends. Before leaving for Anaheim, I promised the guild I'd be back full-time upon return. I was hoping Blizzcon would reinvigorate my excitement for the game. It did, to an extent, and I've kept my promise to the guild. If there's anything Blizzcon reminds me of, it's the fact that the people I game with are the biggest reason I remain.

December saw the guild defeating Heroic Archimonde a couple of weeks before Christmas, which was our ultimate goal for the expansion. Since our raids later in the month fell on holidays, we took a break until 2016.

And that, for the most part, brings us to the present. My play time has ratcheted up; it's nowhere near the consistent levels it was during Mists of Pandaria, but it's a significant change from the last half of 2015. Here's what I've been up to:

• Hitting the gold cap (again): I'm making the slow slog without leaving my garrison by at least logging in for garrison chores on a near-daily basis. I've got four characters with max-level garrisons, two with shipyards also at max-level. I've also got a lower level mule collecting garrison resources to spend at the trading post. Between garrison and shipyard missions, items from crates, and crafted armor and weapons for AH sales, I can easily---easily---pay for my monthly subscription while seeing a significant surplus of gold. I anticipate not paying a dime for Warcraft and hitting the cap before Legion's release. 
• Leveling an alt: With Heroic Archimonde's demise in mid-December, the guild raid was looking at either the prospect of many, many months of Heroic HFC on farm or at switching things up. We've opted for the latter, and are now on a rotating raid schedule that will hop between Heroic farm, Mythic difficulty, and an alt raid night. Hence, I've begun to gear my discipline priest. He's currently around 690 ilvl, but I should have my legendary ring this week unless I'm terribly unlucky with tome drops. 
• The hunt for Mimiron's Head: I've been killing Yogg four times per week for quite some time now and have not had any luck. I'm about to earn the legendary healing mace on a second character, so there's that, I suppose.
• Guild Ironman: During the downtime between expansions, the guild is running its version of an Ironman contest. My human monk is currently level 16. We decided to roll on Wyrmrest Accord, and I must say I really like the realm so far. I'll be chronicling that journey in a hopefully regular-ish series of posts.
• Diablo 3 Season 4: With as much fun as I had leveling a monk in Season 3, I knew I'd return for Season 4. This time around I went with a demon hunter which, at first, I didn't think I was going to enjoy. I generally like melee combat. Still, after getting used to the play style I had no issues quickly leveling to 70 and starting the end-game journey. I really like the armor set dungeons this time around. Adds an interesting aspect to play and makes replaying through on a second character much more attractive to me. 

WoW Weekly: Rediscovering the Spark

WoW Weekly is a biweekly-ish, self-absorbed look into the things I've been doing -- or not doing -- in the game. From auctioneering and pet battling to mount farming and raiding.

Discussion on the big Warcraft news item of the weekend doesn't seem to be dying down, but I've said my piece and am moving beyond the debate. The removal of flight isn't something I agree with, but it's also something I'm not trying to change. In the process of sharing my feelings on the matter, I became more intimate with my own motivations as it relates to approaching the game's content.

I've always found that life is much easier to navigate when you accept the reality around you. It's proving to be true in-game, at least for me. After finishing up the post I linked above, I gave myself a simple charge: make a concerted effort this week to get out of the garrison to see what Draenor really has to offer. In truth, how I've reacted to Draenor is equivalent to the man who dips his big toe into a hot tub and decides, "Too hot for me!"

The week thus far has been filled with treasure hunting, Apexis dailies, garrison invasions, the occasional rep grind, and quest achievements. Last night a group of four friends and I set out for Frostfire Ridge to test our meddle against Nok-Karosh---the luckiest among us was justly rewarded. I've deliberately avoided alt garrisons when they didn't fit into my play schedule. I'll look at legacy content runs this weekend, but for the time being, I'll remain on Draenor proper.

This week has been fun, pure and simple. But. But.

There's still something about Draenor that isn't working for me. Though it's early yet in the expansion's life, I can't help but think when creating a list ranking all previous expansions from most favorite to least, Warlords of Draenor would end up at the bottom. It feels like there are less discernible things to do in the open world at max level, but it may just be that there are different things to do at max level. Dungeons become fairly obsolete, and scenarios and factional daily quests are sorely missed. I was a fan of farmable rare mobs, too...but I'm getting off-topic and ahead of myself now.*

Even considering the above, I've been able to rediscover the spark that caused me to fall in love with the game oh so many years ago. I think all it took was a deliberate shifting of my own perspective. When I remarked to a guildie that I'd found "the spark," he pleaded, "Share? Please?"

I'm finding it in odd places: when randomly cutting my way through Everbloom with a guild group; when chuckling at an antiquated UI system that requires eight mouse clicks in order to complete a simple turn-in quest; when helping a player who you ran into in the open world with a quest they're struggling with; when discovering a drowned skeleton with a large weight around its neck off the coastline. These things serve to remind me, at the core, that this is the same old World of Warcraft.

If you too are struggling with your love of Draenor, I don't have the perfect solution for you. Walking away might be the best option. But if you're not ready to leave, I'd encourage you to take a closer look at what might be waiting for you on Draenor, and engage it with reckless abandon.

Frankly, I've been surprised by what I've found.

*another post for another day

(special thanks to @Hestiah for the screenshot)